Our Fitness Blog

Are all hand wraps created equal?

Aside from just looking cool in your “fist pump” face book photo; the hand wrap serves a very important purpose. The primary function of a good hand wrap is to protect your hand and wrist from injury. Without the proper protection the small bones within your hand could be easily damaged. Contrary to what some may believe, not all wraps are created equal.

The most popular, and most effective hand wrap is what is called a “Mexican-style” hand wrap. This is the style that we use at all 9Round locations. This type of wrap is ideal for any form of boxing training or workout. The Mexican-style wrap works similar to an ace bandage to create somewhat of a soft cast to pad your knuckles and support your wrist. Another added bonus is that the wrap also helps to fill up space in the boxing glove to create a nice snug fit. There are dozens of ways to wrap your hands. Fortunately, there is not much of a wrong way to wrap, so you can easily customize it to your personal preference.

Recently a new style of wrap has become popular due to speed and convenience. Some people are beginning to use a slip-on gel wrap, or as I like to call them “those stupid gel things”. The gel wraps are basically a fingerless neoprene glove with gel padding over the knuckle area. It looks similar to a MMA glove. Although these wraps are much quicker to take on and off, they generally do not offer very much wrist support. The wrist wrap portion actually wraps below the wrist joint and doesn’t do much more than keep the wrap on. The gel padding also offers very little protection for a heavy hitter, and tends to move around quite a bit. You also lack the one-size-fits-all convenience of the Mexican-style wrap.

If you really want to train like a pro the Mexican wrap is the way to go! I think you would be hard pressed to find any real boxer training with anything else.

Drew Brashier has been involved with 9Round in nearly every capacity of the company. He has been a member, trainer, owning partner of a franchise location, and now serves as a corporate officer as the Director of Operational Support.